


Still Alive

by buttsbeyondbutts



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hale Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:40:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3390383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttsbeyondbutts/pseuds/buttsbeyondbutts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A month later, just after the full moon, another postcard arrived. This one had a big, stone head glaring back at him. The stamp was a woman wearing a crown. The post mark said San Paolo but Derek doubted Cora was there anymore. She’d written:  I’m okay. and didn’t sign her name. Derek put it on the fridge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Alive

A postcard reached Derek about a month after Cora left him. The front was a picture of a volcano erupting. The back said; _I’m alive. Don’t worry._ in Cora’s hasty, childlike scrawl. Derek put it on the refrigerator.

A month later, just after the full moon, another postcard arrived. This one had a big, stone head glaring back at him. The stamp was a woman wearing a crown. The post mark said San Paolo but Derek doubted Cora was there anymore. She’d written:   _I’m okay._ and didn’t sign her name. Derek put it on the fridge.

The next month, there were no postcards. Derek tried not to think about it. He worked out and read books most of the day, changing the language every hour on the hour. He kept his phone on and answered every call and text. Two super natural catastrophes demanded his attention and he did his best to serve the true alpha, relieved he didn’t have to make the decisions anymore. He looked at the postcards every time he went to the fridge and ignored the hunger they caused.

Another postcard came nearly ten weeks after he’d last seen his younger sister. _Still okay._ she wrote, _Still Alive_. Again, there was no name, no return address. Cora must either assume Derek was fine or she didn’t care. Very probably it was a combination of both. The image in the front was of a monkey with a smaller monkey on it’s back. Both monkeys stared into the camera. The smaller one seemed impressed, but its paw was in its mouth. The older monkey looked suspicious, as if waiting for the camera to attack. The monkeys took their place on the fridge, next to the volcano.

For the next year, the postcards came on and off. Some  had pictures of birds, or old monuments, or beaches or sunsets. Some were marked for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador. Cora never stayed in the same place two postcards running. Every postcard contained a variation of _I’m alive_ , reworded without any further information. Each took a place on his refrigerator.

When the pack, such as it was, visited, they looked at the pictures. Liam, Scott’s first and only Beta, had never met Cora and so didn’t care beyond looking at pretty pictures. Kira gave Derek pitying glances when she thought he wasn’t looking. Lydia pursed her lips and glared at the images as if they’d personally offended her. Stiles, predictably, was the only one to comment. “Is she coming back?” He asked, taking in each new postcard skeptically.

“I don’t know,” Derek said.

“How do you not-” Stiles started and stopped off a look from Scott. The true alpha just watched Derek sympathetically. Derek got the feeling Scott knew what it was not to know.

Peter, when he appeared, always without warning, flipped them over, one after the other and smirked. Derek snatched them out of his long fingers, careful not to rip the precious paper.

“Can’t an uncle inquire after his niece?” Peter chuckled.

“You’re not inquiring,” Derek snapped. “And I don’t know anything.”

“You never told me where you left her.”

He wouldn’t have told Peter a word, even if Cora hadn’t disappeared in the middle of the night, with nothing more than a note telling him not to look for her. He kept that one under his mattress, though he wouldn’t put it past Peter to search the place while he was gone. He’d seen the way his uncle watched when Derek transferred his Alpha power into Cora to save her life. The cogs in his devious mind were turning. Cora’s absence made it clear she didn’t actually need Derek’s protection but that wouldn’t stop him from offering it, especially where Peter was concerned.

Peter left with a shrug but Derek caught him examining the postcards twice after that, as if looking for some kind of clue.

Thirteen postcards in and Derek found his sister sleeping on his couch. She’d cut her hair, short and uneven. Her clothes were torn, covered in weeks of dirt. Derek let her sleep.

He walked to the refrigerator and pulled the most recent postcard from beneath a Bank of The West magnet. A picture of a brown skinned woman dancing in a red dress, with the words I’m fine written on the back. He took it and sat down across from his sister.

She woke with a start, immediately shifting at the strangeness of her surroundings. She blinked twice before recognizing him and shifting to human features.

“Cora?”

  
“I’m back.” she said, and fell back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> A little experiment in non romance writing. Let me know what you think.


End file.
